South Africa is hardly ever short of a plan, yet the country hardly ever has a vision. That’s why Andre de Ruyter’s recent Van der Bijl Memorial Lecture was so refreshing. In his address, the Eskom CEO lifted his gaze beyond the group’s operational and environmental headaches, its near R400-billion debt burden and even the difficult transition under way in the electricity supply industry, to scan a new horizon that is currently obscured by the clouds of load-shedding, policy uncertainty, political factionalism and even vaccine hesitancy.